Nioh review: A brighter Dark Souls

Nioh shines through Dark Souls' shadow like a bonfire.

Game details

Developer: Team NinjaPublisher: Sony Interactive EntertainmentPlatform: PS4Release Date: Feb. 7, 2016ESRB Rating: M for MaturePrice: $60/£40Links:PSN | Official websiteIt's impossible for a fan of From Software’s Dark Souls or Bloodborne to not see Nioh so clearly mimicking those games’ distinct styles. But the franchises Nioh cribs from rely so deeply on repetition, muscle memory, and hundreds of total hours of perseverance that even the smallest changes in dodge timing or invincibility frames are incredibly obvious. And Nioh changes a whole lot more than dodge timing.

One immediate difference Souls fans will notice after booting up the latest from Team Ninja (Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden) is that it's not set in some ashy, dying Western fantasy world. While the tutorial starts in the Tower of London circa 1600, it's less than an hour before you wash up on the shores of a very vibrant-looking Japan. Don’t let the looks fool you, though—this locale is no less hostile than From Software's Lordran or Drangleic.

The time period places the game right at the tail end of Japan's Sengoku period, which is more important than you might think. Another of Nioh's departures from the Souls games is a plot that’s plainly presented, if not exactly straightforward.

You play as The Witcher's Geralt of Rivia "William," a character based on the real-world William Adams—the first Western samurai and one of only a handful to ever exist. Circumstances draw him to Japan, where he becomes embroiled in the war-torn politics of the era. The oddly descriptive, intricate plot is told partly through encyclopedia entries on the fictionalized historical figures William does business with, interspersed with dramatic shots of shoguns staring each other down in council chambers.

The story has little to do with William personally, though. He's only in Japan because a Celtic bird wizard stole his fairy friend, who can sniff out philosopher's stones. Of course, this leads Will to work for famous ninja Hanzo Hattori, fighting ghosts in order to secure political favors and alliances. All so they can fight the wizard that has William's fairy.

I couldn’t make that up if I tried.

Most of these fantasy bits are played just as cut-and-dried as the politicking. Nioh even respects and addresses little historical niggles—like the fact that an English sailor probably wouldn't speak Japanese in 1600. Dense history lessons rub shoulders with wizards, yokai, fairies, and swords made of lightning, and Nioh doesn't bat an eye. The bland acceptance of the surreal actually calls to mind the magical realism of Dynasty Warriors (or its Sengoku-based sister series Samurai Warriors) rather than Dark Souls.

Monster mashed

The moment-to-moment monster murder is all Souls, though. You have a stamina meter, and you'd better watch it at all times. You have a health meter, and Nioh's nigh-indestructible, poisonous, hit point-drinking bosses think it's just adorable. Make no mistake: you will die a lot playing Nioh, and you will drop whatever experience points you were carrying at the time when you do. Enemies will ambush you around corners and knock you into a bottomless pit, too.

That should sound incredibly familiar to any Souls fan. Having played all of From Software's punishing RPGs, I'd say Nioh is even harder by comparison. You notice it in the obvious, fleeting ways. The game's second proper boss, for instance, can paralyze you, steal your health, fly out of range of melee attacks, and create pockets into the netherworld that drain your stamina faster than normal.

The blacksmith has her own entire world of upgrades to worry about.

Guardian Spirits are useful for a lot of reasons, but mostly confer stat bonuses.

Political intrigue!

The game is split into missions and each one gives unique rewards.

There's an encyclopedia entry for just about everyone and... Everything.

No, no, no, no, no, no!

Puppy spirit!

Of course Nioh has a Blighttown.

Not all bosses are three stories tall.

That's a good way to make a bunch of angry ghosts.

Combat is graceful, but incredibly tense.

Amid the similarities, though, there are some smaller, more esoteric tweaks on the familiar battle mechanics. Blocking or getting hit when Will's stamina reaches zero stuns him for significantly longer than in Souls games, leaving him wide open to follow-up slams, slashes, venom, and paralysis. In one boss battle, a single stunning mistake can lead to an instant, one-hit-kill "screw you" attack.

Nioh uses a thoughtful trio of "stances" for each of its major weapon types. High stance puts out more damage, mid stance grants greater defense, and low stance puts less strain on William's stamina. Flitting between the modes of attack on the fly grants a dance-like quality to combat. You weave between enemy attacks, learn the intricacies of spear and sword animations, and deduce how many strikes you can get away with before reprisal.

The pain train

At its best, there's a grace to it that even Dark Souls and Bloodborne can't match. But the dance feels awfully futile against the dread locomotives Nioh calls bosses, as they simply charge straight through you at full steam. That would be a bigger problem if William wasn't such a pain train himself. The samurai has an intimidating arsenal of agonizing tricks to compensate for the game's higher difficulty. The onus is on the player to actually remember and use them all, though.

60 frames or 30?

The game lets you select from three visual settings, whether played on a normal PS4 or a more powerful "Pro" console: higher resolution, higher frame rate, or splitting the difference. Pro systems get higher resolutions across the board, while all systems can run at either 60 or 30 frames per second. After so many hours of play, we insist: go for the higher frame rate. The "action" mode's 60 Hz refresh is mostly locked and feels wonderful in combat, where you're less likely to notice lower resolutions (which change dynamically based on on-screen action).

Ignore the middle setting. Its variable refresh introduces too much judder.Nioh might just be the most mechanically dense action RPG I've played in years. Besides dumping experience points into ever more costly stats, a Nioh player has to deal with individual skill trees for every class of weapon, every bonus magic spell, and every bit of ninja trickery. Then there are two more progression charts that provide flat bonuses to things like stamina for earning in-game achievements.

Even the semi-randomized re-forging of weapons at an in-game blacksmith between missions is fraught with strategic choices. Do you like a particular skill tied to a particular weapon? You can level the weapon up and pass its bonuses on to a new one. Or you can essentially feed a higher grade weapon to the one you like to raises its overall stats. Don't like a specific skill on a helmet you really want to keep? You can re-roll it for a chance at something better (so long as you have enough resources). Just like the look of a particular pair of double blades? You can transfer its appearance to something more effective. Even the blacksmith herself can be leveled up after a while.

You'll spend a lot of time smithing in Nioh, too, if you know what's good for you. Unlike in Dark Souls, missions and boss fights are infinitely repeatable. That means you can grind through extra stabs at getting rare, semi-random loot drops. In fact, if you want to play cooperatively with a friend, the pair of you can only repeat missions that the host has beaten before. This means the only way to duet your way through unbeaten bosses is by summoning strangers mid-match. Whichever way you do it, though, most of what you earn will be fuel for the smith's many complex functions.

An ace (or four) up your sleeve

All that doesn’t even touch on the minuscule demigods hidden in levels that grant you higher item, gold, experience, or healing item drop rates. Then there’s the menagerie of guardian spirits that bestow unique stat bonuses, and the quick time event-like ability to win back some of William's endurance after every attack. At some point, you unlock so many cards to play in any given situation that Nioh's greatest challenge becomes remembering your whole hand.

Basic survival skills like Will's "Ki Pulse" (the character's second wind) feel almost mandatory quite quickly. It took me quite a while to make this essential skill second nature, especially since my muscles remembered the very specific and different rhythms of Souls games.

It's the less ubiquitous skills I had to keep reminding myself about. For instance, I might slap my forehead in disgust when I remembered, after a boss beat me into cat food, that William can turn himself invincible for short periods. The frustration of dying in one of these games is a lot worse when you remember that there were a half-dozen ways you could have prevented it.

To its credit, Nioh does an honest job of trying to prevent that frustration. Nearly every tutorial lesson can be accessed from the same hub as the blacksmith for reference. The blacksmith herself lets you select items for deconstruction in bulk and even lets you adjust in last chance messages asking, "Are you sure you want to destroy this item?" according to the equipment's rarity. The story, character biographies, and cut scenes can all be accessed for future reference from the in-game encyclopedia. And every wonderfully rendered, slavering, and/or chitin-covered Oni comes with its own bestiary entry based on Japanese folklore.

The extra flavor is so dense that it's almost discouraging, depending on how much you want to read about "modified" Japanese history and mythology. It's all there, in any case, if you find yourself getting lost in a plot that sometimes seems to assume you already know who Tokugawa Ieyasu was.

Rinse your blade and repeat

The story can largely be ignored, though, in favor of something else From Software fans are likely already familiar with: the brutal grind of lived and fictional experience. The same way William gets hale and heartier mathematically, you yourself become so intangibly. Like Demon's and Dark Souls before it, Nioh finds ways to reward the repetition and memorization inherent to all games with tiny, hard-won signs of congratulations. Nioh just happens to have 10 times the number of ways to show that congratulations, with more skill trees, randomized loot, and collectibles than all of Team Ninja's obvious source material put together.

At points, that accumulation of disparate parts starts to feel almost too eclectic, especially when the heat of a boss' burning blade is at your throat. Thankfully, the game is so polished, and the play experience so smooth, that the dozens of hours you'll need to master all these skills never feels like a chore. Meanwhile, it doesn't hurt that the game's tone and setting keep it at least one step separate from direct Dark Souls comparisons. That makes it that much easier to fall under and appreciate Nioh's unique trance, brought on by glinting blades and enormous, mystifying enemies.

The good

Combat is a brutal, graceful dance of blades, stances, and timing

The attention to detail across the game's many systems is staggering

Bosses, while harsh, stand out with a unique Japanese folklore flare

Nioh rewards repetition in all the right ways laid out by Dark Souls

The bad

The story and mechanics can be daunting and even tough to remember

The ugly

Remembering that you can turn yourself invincible right after a boss caves in your head

Verdict:Nioh makes no bones about standing in the shadows of giants, but it extends and polishes the Dark Souls formula so much that it manages to shine just as brightly. Buy it.